Gras, Norman S. B. An Introduction to Economic History (New York, 1922).
Considerable material on the rise of the city as an economic unit. (II, 2, 3; III, 4, 5; IV, 1, 2, 6; X, 1.)
Sombart, Werner. The Quintessence of Capitalism: A Study of the History and Psychology of the Modern Business Man. Translated by M. Epstein (New York, 1915). (II, 3; IV, 6; IX; X; 3.)
Waentig, H. “Die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Grossstädte,” in the volume, Die Grossstadt, edited by Th. Petermann, Dresden, 1903.
A thorough study of the increasing significance of the city as an economic unit. (III, 4; IV, 6.)
5. A sociological definition of the city must recognize that such a complex phenomenon cannot be adequately characterized in terms of any one single distinguishing mark or any set of formal and arbitrary characteristics. The city is, to be sure, a human group occupying a definite area, with a set of technical devices, institutions, administrative machinery, and organization which distinguish it from other groupings. But in this conglomeration of buildings, streets, and people the sociologist discovers a psychophysical mechanism. For him the city is a set of practices, of common habits, sentiments and traditions which have grown up through several generations of life and are characteristic of a typical cultural unit. Within this larger entity which is called the city he sees many other groupings of people and areas which are the result of growth and of a continuous process of sifting and allocation, each one of which areas has a character of its own and produces its special type of inhabitant. He sees a number of occupational and cultural groups whose interests and characteristics mark them off one from the other, but who, nevertheless, are conscious of their membership in some common larger group known as the city, and who participate in its life.
From another point of view the city is an institution which has arisen and maintains itself to some extent independently of the population because it satisfies certain fundamental wants, not only of the local inhabitants, but also of a larger area which has become dependent upon what the city has to give.
The city, finally, may be regarded as the product of three fundamental processes: the ecological, the economic, and the cultural, which operate in the urban area to produce groupings and behavior which distinguish that area from its rural periphery.
Izoulet, Jean. La Cité moderne et la métaphysique de la sociologie (Paris, 1894).
Maunier, René. “The Definition of the City.” Translated by L. L. Bernard, Amer. Jour. Sociol., XV, 536–48.